


Scars

by LieutenantSaavik



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, HSAU, High school Bucky is my baby honestly, I hope you all enjoy it, M/M, Science Project, This is really just fluffy, depression tw, self-harm tw, this is only rated "Teen" for the above TWs and some language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 12:16:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7532389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieutenantSaavik/pseuds/LieutenantSaavik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is partnered with a scrawny dork named Steve that he turns out to like a lot more than he expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

> All information about prosthetics here is accurate, so you won't have to suspend your disbelief too much. <33

**Friday.**

 

“What’s that on your arm,” demands an angry voice. It’s not a question.

 

Bucky looks up from his book. He’s curled on a beanbag at the back of the High School library after hours when Steve, a scrawny teen that nobody really likes, plops down next to him, laptop in his hand. Bucky yanks his arm away. 

“None of your business,” he mutters, wishing he had worn long sleeves or at least his jacket. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”

Steve stares right into Bucky’s eyes, a fierceness there. “You should stop,”he says. “I mean, I know it’s not my place, but you shouldn’t be cutting yourself.”

“What would you know about it?” 

Bucky is bitter and he’s twisting his left arm in his right hand, ashamed of it and the scars that cover it, stretching from near the wrist almost all the way up to the elbow. “How do you know that’s what they’re from, anyway?”

“Nothing else could have done it. Done those scars.”

Bucky glares and presses his arm against himself. “Life’s hard, okay?”

He pulls his book back up in front of his face and resumes reading, angrily.

 

Steve watches him, concerned, for a second, and then wanders away.

  
  


***

  
  


**Monday.**

 

Bucky’s sitting at the back of the science classroom, as usual, idly doodling in his notebook, when his teacher, Ms. Potts, announces that, for all the classes, the “interest-based” group project is starting. Bucky groans audibly, shifting in his chair -- he’s never liked group projects. It’s always one of two things; he’s completely edged out of whatever the presentation is, or everyone expects him to do all of it. Nobody’s ever gained any academic knowledge from group projects, after all -- the only thing anyone learns is how big of an asshole your group members collectively are.

 

“Since the students at Howard Stark High School are a group of students with diverse interests and diverse abilities, for this project, each student will fill out a survey on a scientific topic they would like to further educate their peers on,” Ms. Potts continues. “Students will be paired with one or more other students who have selected a similar topic.” She clasps her hands. “I trust that whoever your partner is, you will get along well and create the best and most educational project you possibly can. Since this is the last remaining project before your final exam, I suggest you give it your all. The rubrics can all be found online,” she projects a link onto the screen in front of the classroom, “as well with more information about the project. However, there’s not much more I can tell you, since, as I’ve mentioned before, this project is very interest-based.”

 

Ms. Potts projects another tinyurl link on the screen. “Take the survey here. The options for the project topics are all within STEM fields, all the way from robotics and weaponry to astrophysics to architecture to environmental science. However, if you have a special request to study a topic not on the survey, you can speak to me after school. The goal of the project is to develop a thorough understanding of the topic you choose and the task is to create an interactive presentation that you and your partner or partners can share with the other members of the grade, educating them. You will be able to check as many boxes as you want, but please select at least three for your first, second, and third choices.”

She smiles, taps the links with her finger, and returns to her seat.

The students take out their laptops and dutifully type in the links. Bucky scrolls through Tumblr for a few minutes, buried in his red sweatshirt, until his friend Nat, sitting next to him, taps him on the shoulder. “Hey,” she hisses. “You really should pick a topic soon -- I think Ms. Potts can tell who’s selected something and who hasn’t.”

Bucky gives her a quizzical look.

She shrugs. “I think it’s how these things work. The results are instantly streamed to her device and then matched with the results from the other science classes. At any rate, academics are important, and you have better things to do than scroll through social media in science class, don’t you?”

“Says you,” jokes Bucky back. Natasha maintains an active social media presence herself, though she claims not to be a big procrastinator.

“At least I try to do my work before I do Tumblr, and not the other way around,” she whispers back with a smile, before resuming scrolling through the rubrics for the project, black-lipsticked lips pursed. 

Bucky turns back to his screen and types in the links. The survey page, as bland and beige and white as every other survey page in the universe, pops up. He skims downward, selects three random boxes for his first, second, and third choices, and presses “Submit,” sending in his results without reading any of the options or even thinking at all.

 

It almost seems like there’s another Bucky in his mind; the one who drifts through life indifferently, so removed from the world and reality that he forgets all the small daily motions and interactions that make up a life the second after he completes them.

It’s depression; he knows it is. He won’t tell his mom what he feels but the razor tells his skin, over and over again. It’s not the arteries; he doesn’t want to die. But it’s not attention-seeking, either. Many of the scars live under clothing, buried deep but not invisible.

The truth is that some part of him lives for the sharp, deep coldness of metal buried in skin, the grounding realness of self-inflicted pain.

It’s a sick, twisted addiction.

And he wants to stop.

But he can’t.

  
  


***

  
  


**Tuesday.**

 

The results for the partner projects are posted on the wall in the science hallway the next day.

 

Natasha is paired with Wanda, a new girl from Hungary or Romania or somewhere like that; everyone seems a little scared of her, for now, but Nat seemed happy when she saw who she was assigned to work with. “I like the interesting people,” she’d once mentioned to Bucky in passing. “I like finding out what makes them dangerous.”

 

Bucky is paired with Steve, who he remembers as the boy who confronted him in the library Friday and little else. He doesn’t share any classes with him and they’ve never really talked before; he doesn’t even know if Steve knows Bucky’s name.

_ This’ll be interesting _ , Bucky thinks.

He shoulders his backpack and moves on to Math class.

  
  


***

  
  


**Wednesday.**

 

Science class again. The three classes are merged in Ms. Potts’s room, which is now crawling with high school students. There are way too many for the single classroom, and Bucky is cringing in the back of the room with his hands over his ears. The sensory overload is a lot; too much to handle, but the neurotypical students in the room, especially the extroverted ones, seem to be handling it just fine.

 

_ Stupid brain _ , he hisses, quietly. He wants to go through life without sound and light and surprise touches eating him alive. But he can’t.

“Talking to yourself?”

It’s Natasha. At her shoulder is Wanda, her long hair draped prettily over her shoulders. Bucky smiles at her and she gives a formal nod in return, lips twitching.

“Maybe I am. What’s it to you?”

“You don’t want anyone to think you’re crazy, you know,” says Nat.

“I don’t care.”

Wanda tilts her head to the side. “I’ve been called crazy.”

She turns and walks away, without saying another word.

 

“She’s weird,” says Natasha, sounding admiring. “Anyway,” she turns back to Bucky, “I heard that Steve’s, for once, not sick, so you should probably try to find him in this mess.” She gestures to the masses of students all around. “He’s in there somewhere. I think I bumped shoulders with him once.”

 

Mss. Potts is trying to call the grade to order from near her teacher’s desk. “Find your partners and check your email for the topic you were assigned!” she repeats. “We have done our best to make sure it is one of the three you selected! When you have your partner, move towards the library and find a place to work!”

 

Steve seemingly materializes by Bucky’s side. “Hey,” he says, out of breath just from fighting his way through the milling people. “Whoever thought this project was a good idea is the biggest fucking idiot in the universe,” he pants.

Bucky laughs, surprising himself. “You’re damn right about that.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a high concentration of people in a place before, and I’m from Brooklyn.”

Bucky laughs again.  _ Is our other conversation going to be ignored? _ Some part of him hopes so. But another part of him wants Steve to bring it up again. As weird and upfront as he was about Bucky’s arm-scars, it showed that he cared.

_ What the hell. I’ll go for it. _

“Why did you say that to me in the library?”

Steve shrugs.

“No really. Why?   
Another shrug from Steve, who then looks at the ground.

“You barely know me. I don’t think you’d ever said anything to me before that. Why did you notice? And why did you care?”

“It’s just not something you should be doing.”

Bucky draws his mouth into a slash and looks at the ground.

“I know it’s not.”

“I know you know,” sighs Steve. “You really should stop, though.”

“I know that, too.”

“Yeah.”

There’s a pause as more and more people in the room find their partner(s) and drift to the edges of the room, some opening laptops and others just chatting.

“You’re James, right?”

“Call me Bucky.”

“I’m Steve.”

“I know.”

 

Another pause. Bucky pulls his laptop out and checks his school email. He and Steve are assigned “The science of cybernetic and prosthetic limbs.”  _ Did I really check that box? Damn. Depressed me is an idiot fuck. _

“Why did you choose this one?” asks Bucky.

“To be honest, Natasha recommended it to me.”

“You know Nat?”

Steve nods, surprised. “Who doesn’t?”

It’s Bucky’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know.”

Why did their mutual friend surprise him so much?

“Why’d she recommend that one to you?”

_ Why didn’t she recommend me one? _

“Well, Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts’s company manufactures prosthetic limbs as well as weaponry, so Natasha figured I could get a lot of help from them. Science isn’t exactly my strong suit, anyway.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I think Natasha only gave me a suggestion because she knows I’m an idiot. I honestly had no idea what to pick.”

Bucky gave a slight smile. “You don’t seem like an idiot to me.”

“Oh, trust me; I am,” Steve chuckled. “I care way too much for my own good. Anyway,” his voice got more efficient, “we should probably get started. It is the last project before the final, anyway.”

Bucky nods. Then something else hits him.

“You don’t share a science class with Nat. So when exactly did she give you the recommendation?”

Steve looks surprised. “About a week ago. This project was announced a while ago, you know.”

Bucky hadn’t known; he’d thought Monday was the first anyone had mentioned of it. He was suddenly scared; while lost in his grey fog, what else had he missed? It was a huge-ass science project, after all!

 

He turned back to Steve. “Well, uh, I guess we should get started?”

Steve nods and takes his laptop under his arm. Bucky does the same, and they head towards the library, which is downstairs and also very large. The silence between them is awkward, and Bucky is glad the sleeves of his sweatshirt cover his arms. After P.E. earlier that day, where he had to throw a football, the cuts are hurting again.

  
  


***

  
  


The library is an airy place, with windows that lead to the outside, which is currently overcast. Bucky looks more out the window than at his computer screen; he can’t focus well. Steve is sitting at a table across from him and appears to be working hard, typing into their shared document with a look of concentration that would be hard to fake.

 

“Did you know that the biggest difference between civilian prosthetics and military prosthetics?” asks Steve, looking up at Bucky before dropping his eyes back to the screen to continue reading through whatever he’s pulled up.

“Nope,” says Bucky disinterestedly, pushing his longish hair back from his face. “Seems like something good to find out, though.”

Steve nods and types something into a search bar. “Okay.”

 

They work for the remainder of the class. Bucky finally scrapes his mind together and focuses for a solid twenty minutes, finding articles and translating them to MLA that the school is so persnickety about. He gets some good stuff - it’s unknown who “officially” invented prosthetics, though the earliest example was a set of prosthetic toes that were created in Ancient Egypt sometime between 950-710 BCE. Following that was the Roman Capula leg from about 300 BCE, unfortunately destroyed during WWII. In 1906, a ‘specialized’ prosthetic was created -- namely, one that would allow somebody to play the piano was developed. Following that, an American inventor named Van Phillips made further advancements by creating the first carbon graphite (a form of carbon-fiber) prosthetic, a foot, the model of which is still used today in the Paralympics and the like.

 

“That’s good stuff,” says Steve, reading over it. He had been writing the introduction to the project, which was well-worded but rather vague. All in all, they’d made good progress, and Bucky left the class feeling slightly happier than he had in a while. Something had been accomplished. Maybe he’d even made another friend.

  
  


***

  
  


**Saturday.**

 

That weekend, Steve invites Bucky over to his house to get some extra work. Steve’s parents are lovely people who have Oreos and milk ready on the table when he gets there. The unexpected kindness makes Bucky grin, and he and Steve sit at the table and talk rather than working for almost the entire afternoon.

 

“You like Oreos?” Steve asks, smiling and reaching into the packet for another and offering it out. Bucky smiles and takes it. “My parents don’t really let me eat them, because they’re not healthy, so I basically just stuff myself with them whenever the opportunity arises.”

Steve frowns. “That’s shit. Sorry ’bout that. I guess when you come over, I’ll have some for you.”

 

And he does.

 

Bucky starts coming over to Steve’s more and more often, and every time he shows up, even if it’s by surprise after his parents are shouting again, Steve pulls out Oreos just for him. They finish the science project, each coming up with a 92, or a 6 on the IB scale. Ms. Potts compliments it as detailed and thorough, as does Mr. Stark, the principal of the school. Bucky’s science grade shoots up, and he ends up passing the class with a solid B+, after weekends of coffee-shop exam-studying with Steve, Nat, and Wanda.

 

 

***

 

 

After a while, as the summer is drifting peacefully by, Steve asks Bucky on his first date. It catches Bucky off guard -- he’d hoped Steve wasn’t straight, but he did catch him kissing Nat in the hallway one day (Natasha explained later that it was just to make her ex-boyfriend, Bruce, jealous, and that it didn’t mean anything). Bucky accepts, happily, and then Nat decides to tag along with Wanda to make it an “extremely queer double-date,” a phrase and idea taken enthusiastically by everyone. The date is set for July 23rd, and Bucky leaves Steve’s house feeling as if he’s floating two feet off the ground.

 

It’s then that he realizes that, since he met Steve, he hasn’t cut himself once.

 


End file.
